Pharmaceuticals intended for oral administration are typically provided in solid form as tablets, capsules, pills, lozenges, or granules. Tablets are swallowed whole, chewed in the mouth, or dissolved in the oral cavity. Chewable tablets are typically made from a mixture including active drug particles, and other inactive ingredients (excipients), and are often employed for the administration of pharmaceuticals where it is impractical to provide a tablet for swallowing whole. With chewable tablets, the act of chewing helps to break up the tablet particles as the tablet disintegrates and may increase the rate of absorption by the digestive tract. Chewable tablets are often utilized to improve drug administration in pediatric and geriatric patients.
Various attempts have been made to enhance the texture of drug particles in order to prevent their adhesion to the oral mucosa upon ingestion. For example, WO88/06893 discloses an oral composition comprised of an active substance and a gelling or swelling agent capable of forming a viscous medium around the particles in an aqueous carrier. Disadvantageously, such compositions must be disintegrated in water to form a liquid suspension before ingestion for purposes of facilitating the ease of quickly swallowing the composition without chewing. U.S. Pat. No. 6,709,678 has overcome the need to suspend the formulation in an aqueous vehicle before administration by coating its particles with a hydratable polymer and a salivation-promoting agent.
It would be desirable to have an oral dosage form that effectively increases saliva production during ingestion, which thereby obviates the need for consumption with water and thereby improves the swallowability of such dosage forms.